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Wed, 10 Oct 2012 08:18:40 -0500

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Switcher Beware: Verizon's Hidden Activation Fees

Tue, 02 Oct 2012 16:58:00 -0500

tl;dr: If switching to Verizon, keep in mind they charge a $35 Activation Fee per device, even if you are moving a device from an existing account. They keep these fees completely hidden from you in the online order process, and in my case will not even tell it to you when in their stores. They expect you to know this, despite the fact that it’s not listed anywhere until you get your first bill.

So like many others, I decided to end my relationship with AT&T with the release of the iPhone 5. I was sick of AT&T and the promise of a better network on Verizon for the same price was appealing. I decided to try the network out for the first two weeks, the length of their return policy, and use a new number instead of porting my number out right.

I did a good amount of research of prices and comparisons before I even pre-ordered the phone. Never once was any form of “Activation Fee” mentioned for anything related to my new iPhone 5 or my iPad was mentioned or on any line item anywhere. I even did a Google search for “Verizon Activation Fee” before I ordered the iPhone 5 and found nothing but talk of their “Upgrade Fee” which is standard and mention that they had a no Activation Fee according to Best Buy which was the second response. So I never considered it something I had to worry about it, or so I thought. In hind sight I should have researched this further.

After a solid week of good service with my new iPhone 5, I decided to make the switch and port my number. I also had to move my iPad over to the shared data plan which would cost me only $10/month so it was a no brainer. So I was told by a phone rep to go into a store to do this, as it was a complicated process. So I did, and it went mostly smoothly. I had to call back to get the job finished as the store messed up, but it was working in the end. There was no mention of any fees while I was in the store, who were very helpful. So I walked away a happy camper and glad I had finally switched.

The ugly truth of the matter was revealed earlier today when my friend Jonathan Wight tweeted about getting charged $60 to move his iPad onto his Shared Data plan. I then replied that I hadn’t been charged for the same thing, so I found it weird he was being charged.

Just to be sure I re-opened up the three receipts that were emailed to me from that day at the store, and found I HAD in fact been charged $35 for adding that iPad to my main line. This fee was never told to me, as I said before. No requests for me to authorize charges to the line either. In the store I was asked to sign to authorize the porting of my number, but that was it. They basically charged me $35 to move my iPad from one account to the newer account with the shared data plan. It’s not even a new line of activation, it’s a simple move. Below is the receipt in question which includes a prorated two months of $10/mo shared data.

Click to view the full receipt with the personal info redacted.

Then my friend Aaron Douglas spoke up that he too was charged for each of the three iPhone 5 he pre-ordered, without that fee being disclosed up front. That discovery got me wondering, maybe I should check if they gave me an activation fee on my iPhone line as well? So I first checked my iPhone 5 invoice, which showed again no Activation Fee just as I had remembered. I remember being glad when I didn’t see a fee or mention of a fee when ordering. You can take a look at the invoice below, which only has a $34 tax on the full price of the device, but no $35 Activation Fee line item.

Click to view the full invoice with the personal info redacted.

Then I logged onto My Verizon and opened the bill, and low and behold, there is a $35 activation fee. You can see it there below.

Click to view the full receipt with the personal info redacted.

So is Verizon is being very sneaky by not showing this when you order? It was time to find out. I created a new order, went thru as far as I could with fake information, and not ONCE did I see a activation fee line item. The only place it’s mentioned is in the Verizon Customer Agreement, which doesn’t say how much it is but that you can’t get it refunded unless you cancel within three days. Another mention of a $35 fee also doesn’t apply to my situation: “You may have to pay a $35 fee to re–activate Service if your Service is terminated”. Again no mention of a new account activation fee, and what that fee is.

In fact doing this I confirmed what I remembered: the online order process never calls out the activation fee at all. Here’s one of the final screens I captured, which illustrates the total cost of the order. Check out the screenshot below to see for yourself.

Click to view the full order page.

Even Verizon’s own Twitter Support team said it should be “listed in the Total Due field “, which it was not as you see clearly above. This Twitter account is usually super helpful before I signed up, to the level of almost being a spammer, but the second I started having a problem it stopped responding to me. Figures.

@mccarron I see. The activation fee would’ve been listed in the Total Due field when you were placing the order online.^AT
— VZW Support (@VZWSupport) October 2, 2012

Also, if the Activation Fee was in the Total Due why would it also then be on my first bill? Makes no sense.

Because neither fee was told to me upfront, I tried to call Verizon today to get these two Activation Fees waived. But I was told the fees are their “policy” and was denied a waiving of the fee. The rep agreed it wasn’t “right” with how I was misled at two different points but couldn’t do anything for me. I objected to this decision and requested an escalation to her supervisor, who was out to lunch, but so far have not heard back. I fail to see how these fees are policy if it was never in writing anywhere that I agreed to.

So Verizon is hiding these fees from potential and existing customers and also won’t waive it if you don’t like the fee once you notice it. I would have no problem paying this if they were just upfront about it, but as a new Verizon customer none of this was made aware to me until I got my first bill. If I didn’t already port my number from AT&T, I would be considering dropping my new Verizon service right now as I’m still within the 14 day window just because of how they have failed to handle this situation.

I think my friend Luke Wallace said it best:

“The worst carrier is the one you’re on.”

Update 10pm CST: Finally got help from a @vzwsupport agent on Twitter, ^LA, who actually went the extra mile and removed my activation fees. She agreed that the iPad plan migration should have never been a fee at all and also that the iPhone 5 purchase online should have shown the activation fee as part of the process but for some reason did not. I hope Verizon either waives all new customer activation fees online, or makes the Activation Fee much clearer than it is today to avoid problems like mine.

Thanks to ^LA from@vzwsupport for going extra mile & fixing my Verizon activation fee. I hope they make the fee less hidden in the future.
— Patrick McCarron (@McCarron) October 3, 2012

Update 10/3 5pm CST: I just heard back from a Verizon executive support team member today. It was a follow up to a note with a link to this blog about the hidden activation fees I passed along to Verizon Wireless CEO Daniel Mead’s email. I simply asked him to look into it and clear up the issue. I told him I felt hidden fees was something that is very becoming of any company. The agent wanted to let me know they are looking into the issue and would work to correct it so that online customers are properly notified of the fee during the checkout process. They told me that hiding or not making this fee clear was not their intention.

She also did state to me that moving an iPad from one Verizon Wireless account to another shared data plan should NOT count as a device activation and should not incur a fee. So I say anyone who got socked with this fee should fight it.

So now I guess to wait to see if the fee is actually clearer in the future.

Making an iOS Powered MAME Arcade Machine

Sat, 22 Sep 2012 00:28:00 -0500

One of the “perks” of being an iPhone application developer has always been an excellent excuse to upgrade to the latest and greatest iPhone. As I write this on Friday I am actually waiting for my iPhone 5 to be delivered. Getting every device is useful and almost a requirement in order to test your applications on it.

But what you do with these devices as time goes on and they become increasingly obsolete? Some people sell them, others hand them down to family, but I typically keep them around for testing as well as nostalgia. They have come in handy over the years for various different things as well, like when I used them for time lapse cameras for the big Chicago snow storm of 2011. But they start to pile up and collect now after five years.

Yes… I may have a problem

Early this year I bought a new CRT monitor for my dedicated Mortal Kombat 2 arcade machine. It needed to be done because of bad burn in, and arcade CRTs are becoming increasingly rarer by the day. The monitor I bought is a Tri-mode monitor that not only supports the standard arcade resolutions (CGA and EGA) but it also supports VGA and comes with a standard VGA connector and adapter for JAMMA pins as well. This got me thinking, maybe I’ll build a MAME machine instead of running all the hardware required to run the five games switchable that I run in it today.

So, when starting to plan the MAME machine my initial plans were to use an older Mac Mini. But when I was putting together what turned out to be a pretty extensive parts list, I got to thinking: “Why can’t I just repurpose an old iOS device for this?”

It turns out, I can and I did…

How did I do it, you may ask? Here’s a breakdown of what I did if you too want to try to do the same with your arcade cabinet.

WHAT YOU’LL NEED

Here is a list of parts you’ll need and some price estimates.

Arcade Cabinet
Arcade monitor that can run VGA+ resolutions - Varies

24.5” version of this monitor

An original iCade - Can be found as low as $50+
iPad VGA Connector - $30
iOS Device (with an A4 chip or greater) - $200+
Audio wiring of your choice/need - ~$10
Security Torx bits - ~$10

Basically if you have an arcade cabinet with a monitor that’ll display VGA+ signals and an old iPhone like I did, then you can likely do this project for as little as $100.

PART 1: VIDEO

I decided the optimal way to connect the video is to use the Apple iPad VGA adapter which works with any device with an A4 or higher processor. So that means I can use an iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, any iPad and the newest iPod Touch models. You can also use the Apple HDMI cable if your monitor has an HDMI input.

Choose Your Destiny

The video is the most important part, because without it you can’t do the rest of it. So before I did anything I built a simple app to test video modes on my arcade monitor. I found it returns that it supports more resolutions beyond VGA, but in fact it doesn’t. But it successfully works at 640x480 as I found in my testing.

It’s Resolution Baby

For my purposes this solution is more than adequate. A proper MAME setup can also get to the lower CGA or EGA resolutions, but for my monitor being analog it’s best to keep it on one resolution so this is not ideal and still looks great to me.

PART 2: CONTROLS

As far as controls go, this was the one I thought about the most. There are a few options, but even less for non jailbroken iOS devices. So I settled on going with the iCade method of making the iOS software think it’s a Bluetooth keyboard. I did this by… using an iCade.

iCade - The key to this project

I owned an iCade from the first day they were available, it makes for a great iPad stand and also a fun way to play some classic games which are making their way to the platform more and more. But I didn’t want to open it up and ruin it. So I searched online to see what the wiring system looked like, and I was pleasantly surprised to see it uses standard arcade control cherry switches. Which meant, transplanting it’s guts into my arcade machine would be fairly easy.

I opted to buy a second iCade to use for this, because I’d like to make it a permanent fixture in my home. I found one used on eBay for $40 shipped and jumped on it. I’ve also seen others go for as low as $20 at times as well.

So once I got it home I began to pull it apart to take what I needed to transplant to make the iCade work with my existing arcade control panel. Below are a few photos, it’s fairly straight forward and took a matter of minutes so I wont waste words explaining how to take it apart. Keep in mind I did find you’d need a security torx bit to get it open, but these are fairly commonly found at hardware stores now.

iCade Inside Out
Standard Quick Disconnects
No Quick Disconnects, Easily Resolved
iCade’s PCB
PCB plus wiring ready to go Here is the end result of the iCade transplanted into my arcade control panel.

One downfall with using an iCade is that it’s a one player only device. So my two player capable arcade machine is not being used optimally, no going head to head in Mortal Kombat and no teaming up together in The Simpsons Arcade Game. I am going to look into building a custom Bluetooth controller using an Arduino, or similar, that would work similarly to the iCade but also support two or more players.

PART 3: AUDIO

At first I wasn’t going to do anything for audio. My iPad 3 which I was initially using in the process was quite loud enough that it was as loud as the arcade machine. But when I moved back to the iPhone 4 which will likely be the sole device I use for this, I found it’s speaker quite limiting.

The arcade cabinet is only mono so only had two connections for one speaker to hook up to the iPhone. So I grabbed a few spare headphone and RCA cables I had around, did some cutting and then hooked on two alligator clips which I use to connect to the speaker. Here’s the finished cable.

Made cable long to reach the cabinet speaker wire in the back

It’s all rather simple, if you can hook up arcade controls you can also hook up a speaker.

PART 4: POWER

Power is one of the things that is really an unique to this setup. An iPhone device has very little drain compared to a desktop computer or even the five arcade PCBs that took two PC power supplies to run that had in there. Also the iCade runs off of two AA batteries as well, or an optional power brick. The way I set it all up today actually has no direct power draw from the wall at all. I ripped out the iCade’s battery compartment to keep things simple for now.

Couldn’t find my Dremel, so I used a drill.

The only major issue I have right now is that the VGA adapter blocks the power connector of the iPhone. So when I’m not playing, I keep the iPhone plugged into power. In my testing, iMAME can run for about 2.5 hours on my iPhone 4 without interruption so this is adequate for my purposes but not ideal.

Carefully chosen case for matching red trim

In the future I’ll be researching a way to keep the iPhone powered without blocking the VGA port. Apple’s own HDMI output solved this issue, so it’s possible, but I need to build or hack the existing cable to solve this problem.

PART 5: SOFTWARE

As I said earlier, no jailbreaking is required for my solution. But for others this may be difficult without jailbreaking. The MAME project, and by extension the iMAME4All projects by Seleuco, are all open source so any developer can build them with little work and without jailbreaking.

iOS developers are best to start with lesbird’s iMAME for Xcode, much easier to get up and running from there. I have notice some performance problems with my builds, and I’m looking into that and readying the project for iOS 6. I will likely be releasing that update on this Github project sometime soon now that iOS 6 has been released.

Also if you are not a developer and happened to download the iMAME that was availble on the AppStore like I did, then you don’t need to jailbreak your device. Otherwise if you are jailbroken, both iMAME4All and newer iMAME4iOS are available on Cydia.

It’s important to note that the MAME4All that iMAME4All is based off of a source fork of MAME that is around 10 years old now. It’s done like this because it runs things much faster on older hardware, but suffers because of a lack of compatibility and accuracy. But for most games, it works perfectly fine. Seleuco also ported a newer source build of MAME into the iMAME4iOS project. It needs much beefier hardware to run the games, but has a much greater compatibility. I’ll likely be moving to this build in the future.

THE END RESULT

TO THE FUTURE

I’m also not 100% happy with how iMAME works with the arcade cabinet and the iCade, and this is something I am looking forward to improving since it is open source. I haven’t had the time yet but I have a few ideas. One idea I had is to make a whole new interface, here is a mockup below:

Besides some software, power and possible control enhancements I’ve been wanting to do, there was another idea that was sprung from this project. What if you were to take a third party console arcade stick, toss in an iCade and an iPhone dock. Then using AirPlay Mirroring or the HDMI adapter, you could then turn that arcade stick into a portable arcade machine that hooks up to any modern TV. Why settle for playing these games on your iPad with an iCade, when you can hook it up to your 55” HDTV in your living room?

Now to find some spare time to make a proof of concept of this idea. Lucky for me this is another project where I have all the parts required to see it through.

If you have any questions you can contact me via email or Tumblr’s “Ask me a question” via the links on the right side of the page. I’ll try to get to them in a timely manner to get you on your way.

How AT&T locked me out of my Yahoo! & Flickr accounts

Fri, 13 Jul 2012 12:21:00 -0500

This is a story of how yesterday one company completely locked me out of another company’s accounts and services. Now neither company is taking the blame and are both stating “there is nothing we can do” and actually blaming me at times too. It’s a long story, so I have provided a great short TL;DR; version below:

Now this is the story all about how
my Flickr account got flipped, turned upside down
And I’d like to take a minute just sit right there
I’ll tell you why my Yahoo! account password is bare

In west Yahoo! born and raised
On the Flickr is where I spent most of my days
Chilling out, maxing, relaxing all cool
And all shooting some photos outside of the school
When a couple of companies, they were up to no good
Started making trouble in my user accounts
I got in one little fight and my mom got scared
And said “You’re moving with your friends over at 500px”

Still here? Lets continue shall we?

The story starts 10 years ago when I graduated college I began work at what was then called SBC Ameritech. As part of working with them I signed up for their “SBC Yahoo! DSL” service at my new apartment as we were given a discount, and it was the best internet available where I lived. One feature of the account was that they’ll give you some free Yahoo! premium services along with your DSL service. In order to use this you have to basically “merge” the accounts. This is when, if I had a time machine, I’d tell myself “DO NOT DO IT!” just to avoid what happened yesterday. I merged them and thusly my @ameritech.net account for my DSL line and my at that point my 3-4 year old Yahoo! account shared a password.

Fast forward to 4 years ago. SBC Ameritech is now known as AT&T (name change, company is “the same”) and I no longer work for them after going indie to develop iOS software in 2008. I cancelled my AT&T U-verse service and moved to Comcast for internet service because of their superior DOCSIS 3.0 technology. I was told AT&T would un-merge the Yahoo! and @ameritech.net accounts as part of the cancellation process. But since I now only use my Yahoo! account for nothing other than to access my Flickr Pro account, I never checked into this at all. I also irresponsibly never changed it’s password either. I completely forgot about them being merged at one point, until yesterday…

Well as most of us know, it was revealed yesterday that Yahoo! had a data breach and about 500,000 usernames and passwords were leaked. So despite not being in the leaked password file, I figured it was a good time to change my password anyways. I go to do this, and Yahoo! sends me to ATT.com to change my password for some reason. This is when I realize, my account is STILL LINKED to an account that is no longer valid on AT&T’s system. This is going to be a problem I thought, but I was WAY underestimating how much of a problem it would be.

I did some digging online, and I found a helpful post on the ATT Forums which detailed how to un-merge your accounts. The problem here is for step one I couldn’t actually log into AT&T’s website to do that step because my account is so old it wouldn’t let me in. So I called AT&T.

The rep I spoke to could actually reset my password, she gave me a new temporary password that AT&T’s website actually prompted me to change when I tried to log in. So the first concern of mine was solved, I had a new password that worked on my Yahoo! account. But that was as far as I could get on the AT&T account. It would not let me in so I could un-merge the accounts. She then transferred me to someone who could help me with the unmarking of the two accounts. The transfer failed after 15 minutes of waiting, I now heard a dial tone.

I decided it was enough for the day for now, and I’ll deal with un-merging another day. I then notice immediately that my new password, no longer works at all on Yahoo! as it did minutes earlier. Neither does my old password or the temporary password she had given me (I wrote them all down). So I call AT&T back after their Team Susan Twitter group, who reached out to me first, failed to reply back to me at all on the issue.

This agent not only didn’t know what Ameritech was, or how to spell it for the email address. I should have hung up and got someone else, but I didn’t. I told him I needed to reset the password and unlink it by deleting the account as detailed in the post on the ATT Forums. He told me he could not reset that password as it gave him some error, despite an agent earlier doing it, BUT he could delete the account for me which should un-merge it he told me. He deleted the account and then gave me a phone number to reach Yahoo! to finalize the un-merge. I called this number and was met with a rep who simply asked for my email and my phone number, and that someone would call me back in 15 minutes.

Three hours pass, and I hadn’t heard from Yahoo! I figured they and I were busy but I’d call that number back now that it’s been three hours. I called that number again and I realize that it never said Yahoo! and was just a generic messages and statements. I Googled the number, and found it was some scam “repair” service that is just collecting user info for who knows what purposes. So they now have my phone number and an old email address I can’t get into. GREAT! Thanks AT&T!

So I look up Yahoo!’s real number for the first time, which isn’t easy. I found it via Contact Help’s page on Yahoo!. I think any company that makes it THIS hard to contact support that you have to goto ANOTHER website to find it, should be avoided at all costs.

Yahoo! proved themselves RIGHT AWAY to not give a damn about me. The rep I got flat out right refused to help me because he didn’t “have the tools” to either reset my password or unlink my account and only AT&T did. I told them AT&T deleted my account they couldn’t either, he didn’t care. I asked to speak to his supervisor as someone at the company should be able to figure this issue out since it’s a yahoo.com account, not an AT&T account. He refused, I told him I’m a paying customer for Flickr Pro and I need access to that account. He said take it up with AT&T. I told him I want to cancel my services then, so he transferred me to billing.

The billing department rep was nice at first, she apologized for everything but declined to help me get into my accounts but would process my cancellation instead. Weird. So I told her I wanted a refund of my 2nd year of Flickr Pro which I purchased in August 2011 since I can’t get into my account. She pulled it up, but became extremely difficult when I couldn’t figure out what credit card I used to pay for it. I have an American Express, Discover and a VISA, she said none of those were used. She also added Flickr Pro is non refundable and that no one at Yahoo would process that refund for me, if I was even really me. My reply to this was basically: “That’s Bullshit. If you guys refuse me access to what I pay for I should get a refund. I shouldn’t have to take this up with the CEO to get a refund.” Her reply: “Maybe you should!” and I hung up in anger.

This triggered me to get in touch with AT&T again in a desperate plea to find someone who could help. The first rep actually transferred me to a great high level tech support agent, Sonia, who not only understood the issue wanted to help me. I was happy looked promising, but that promise was short lived. She tried hard, but said because the password was reset again after I called by someone and then deleted, that password is unobtainable and can’t be reset again on their end. I have to log into Yahoo! with whatever password it is, and finalize the un-merge process by hitting a button that should be presented when I log in next. The third step on the post on the ATT Forums. She actually called Yahoo! and came back with really bad news, and this is an exact quote:

“There is nothing we can do anymore and this issue is in limbo. No one can reset this password, not even Yahoo”. She gave me a Yahoo! reference number and a reference number for AT&T as well. She told me to try to convince Yahoo! to do something, but it looks bad.

I called Yahoo! and reached an agent who transferred me immediately to their supervisor. They told me the supervisor would conference us with AT&T and get this resolved. I was again hopeful. The supervisor while helpful and nice compared to other Yahoo! employees so far, didn’t want to call AT&T after all on the line. Instead she forward me off to a AT&T 866 support number after LYING to me telling me it was a direct number to a “High Level” support team that is both Yahoo and AT&T employees. I was upset.

One final call to Yahoo! resulted in another agent similar to the first one. Lots of attitude, didn’t care to help me, and kept repeating to me things I already told him. He refused to let me talk to a supervisor as well and instead said only AT&T could help me get into my Yahoo! account as “no one at Yahoo! can help you with your yahoo.com account”? What? I asked him basically “Isn’t it your job to help people get into their Yahoo! accounts?” He got VERY condescending to me and kept cutting me off trying to re-explain the situation to him. I told him his job is to help people with their Yahoo! accounts and how he was failing to do his job by passing off my issue to someone else, and I wanted to talk to a supervisor or anyone higher. He responded “If you know how to do my job, why don’t you do it yourself!” and hung up on me.

This is the end to my story, I gave up and filed a report against Yahoo! with the Silicon Valley BBB asking for my money back and my Flickr photos on a disc or the more simple resolution: access to my Yahoo! account again. AT&T’s Team Susan Twitter group said they are still trying to help me, but I’m not holding my breath. My Flickr Pro account exists and it appears I can upload photos via Instagram, but I can’t add photos or access my account any other way. So enjoy the photos while they last when my Flickr Pro account expires in August 2013. I am currently looking for a way to extract them automatically without logging in, but I’m not holding my breath. Also a lot of well respected friends of mine are recommending I take a look at 500px instead of Flickr, and I’m starting to see that is a VERY good idea. So here is my new my 500px account, feel free to follow me if you’d like.

Update 7/16 4pm: Thanks to a desperate “help me” email I sent over to Kay Kremerskothen the Lead Community Manager at Flickr, I got back into my Flickr account via a whole new Yahoo! account. Now I can back up it’s contents. He said he has forwarded on my Yahoo! problems to the right department, so we’ll see what comes of that. I also heard back from the BBB who has accepted my complaint and has given Yahoo! two weeks to respond to my issues. I still want to delete the old Yahoo! account for good, to make sure no one somehow gains access to it at some point in the future. Now to wait.

How To: Use a Custom Game Center Turn Based Notification Sound

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 15:30:03 -0500

There is one thing I briefly mentioned in my post last week about the Game Center Turn Based APIs that I want to expand on a bit. While currently Game Center’s turn based push messages don’t match your app, there is an undocumented way to make the notification “sound” like you want it. The following method works on iOS 5 and 5.1 currently.

All you need to do is add a single sound file to your application bundle and iOS will automatically play that sound file when a turn/invite notification is sent to the user. The file is GKInvite and the format/extension must be either .caf, .aif or .wav.

An example GKInvite.wav from Words Play

Once this file is in your bundle, the rest will take over automatically. While this is undocumented it wont break your application if Apple changes it in the future. If you want this documented I suggest you file a similar radar to this one by me (rdar://problem/11168479) to get Apple to be more clear and add it to the documentation. Will Apple reject for this use in the future? Lets hope not and hope that the lack of documentation is just an oversight.

Thanks to fellow iOS developer Jason Lust who first posted about this sound on the Apple Dev Forums. Hope this information is helpful for developers out there using Game Center Turn Based APIs.

Words Play: Reflections on Game Center's Turn Based APIs

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 12:47:15 -0500

When we at Stand Alone set out to create Words Play we wanted to create a word game with a better user experience than what was out there on iOS already. We wanted it to be faster, more responsive and tailored to iOS as well. Then we added unique features to set us apart like word lookup, turn history, pass and play, achievements and AI play. We felt we could make what we felt was a great well rounded turn by turn word game, and I think we got pretty close to that goal with our latest update that came out this past week where we added a multiplayer chat feature as well as cleaning up the application UX a bit.

Another advantage of being on iOS was Words Play could take advantage of iOS 5’s newest Game Center Turn by Turn APIs. Using these APIs it affords us a game that could be run without needing to run a costly server infrastructure to handle the matchmaking and turn by turn handling. The turn by turn API and its backing server architecture is a nice benefit Apple provides developers of their platform that most other platforms do not even begin to offer. Running a server can be difficult and very costly, and we were happy to see Apple attempt to fill this need with a popular genre of games that run on their platform.

While we continued building the app and getting more intimate with the new Turn Based APIs we found it all very lacking. We feel now that it needs some work to really become a full on replacement for running your own services. From strange usability issues, lack of server data analysis tools, or just plain odd architecture decisions. Below you will find a list of our top issues (with linked bug reports) that we discovered over the past six months as well as a brief description on how that impacted our design. If these issues were to be solved it would dramatically improve Game Center for the better.

The purpose of me bringing up these issues is not to bitch and complain, but to inform other developers and hopefully get some attention to these issues. I actually see the value and potential in Game Center and I want to see Apple improve it. I’d love to see it become a killer-feature for the platform instead of what it is today. So we’re hoping that Apple will make strides to improve these issues in both iOS 6 and the upcoming Mac OS Mountain Lion which brings the Mac Game Center support.

Bug: Game Center turn based games can’t programmatically invite
rdar://11144951 - OpenRadar Link

This is a big one, we find it amazing that inviting or rematching players is not supported still. The API to do it is all there, just doesn’t work at all. There are numerous complaints about this on the Apple Developer Forums and my radar is far from the first, yet the problem still exists and that’s really disappointing. So instead of a simple one button press for a rematch the user is forced to perform just shy of 10 taps to setup a rematch. See the image flow below, this could be much better as the bottom half of the image shows.

Enhancement Request: Fix the Game Center Turn Based menu flow
rdar://11144972 - OpenRadar Link

This is a bit related to the previous bug, but still feel both points are important. The overall flow and design of the Game Center screens is hard to use for users. It’s so hard that we’re currently exploring having adding a first timer tutorial on how to use the menus, and that’s not right. Apple can do better.

Enhancement Request: Allow Filter/Sort for Game Center Turn Based Friend Invite List
rdar://11144995 - OpenRadar Link

Once you get to the list of Game Center friends to invite to a game you are presented with a list of all your friends with no clear indication if they have the game you are also playing. The list should be sorted or allow straight filtered out if they don’t have the game you want to play them in.

Enhancement Request: Game Center Turn Based Notifications should show as game in use
rdar://11145004 - OpenRadar Link

This is almost a bug and an enhancement request, it’s a fine line really. When you get turn based notifications they come across as from Game Center, not the game you are playing, but if you have Game Center turned off in Notification Center then you wont get these notifications at all. We see this a lot with players not sure why they aren’t being told it’s their turn if Words Play is enabled in Notification Center.

Bug: Game Center reporting incorrect dates in lastTurnDate
rdar://10660917 - OpenRadar Link

This one is really unfortunate. We found this bug a while ago, and it still isn’t fixed. Basically in the turn data that Game Center sends back and forth between users there is a lastTurnDate. This date is being set by the DEVICE not the server. So because we can’t trust this date to be accurate, because users can change their devices dates, it’s pretty much useless when comparing if a turn is new or not.

Enhancement Request: Game Center Turn Based Analysis Tool
rdar://11145026 - OpenRadar Link

When debugging game issues with customers it’d be super handy to check the server to see what data a user’s game is passing back and forth. There is no way to do this since Apple owns the servers, but they could provide us an interface to that turn data. We’d love them if they created that tool for us!

Enhancement Request: Game Center should be able to Find Social Network Friends
rdar://11145019 - OpenRadar Link

Let people who have linked Twitter find their Twitter friends on Game Center. And if Apple ever adds Facebook support to the OS, allow Facebook as well. Customers don’t understand why our game doesn’t do this because we can’t do this with Game Center as it stands today.

Enhancement Request: Game Center Message/Chat Functionality
rdar://11145031 - OpenRadar Link

Communicating between Game Center users doesn’t exist, but on most game platforms (Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, Steam, etc) there is a way to send your friends messages. This would be great feature to be built into Game Center as well and I’m sure almost all games would rather run this off of Apple’s infrastructure instead of rolling their own, and this would help spread Game Center adoption across games even more so than Turn by Turn.

My App On Stage with Steve Jobs While I’ve never gotten...

Fri, 07 Oct 2011 14:23:00 -0500

My App On Stage with Steve Jobs

While I’ve never gotten to meet Steve Jobs I am proud to have had my app Shanghai Mahjong icon on screen during Apple’s September of 2008 Special Event. Soon after it began to also appear on many Apple Store fronts world wide. To think Steve Jobs approved of it’s look to be used in these ways always made me proud of my work.

RIP Steve, Thanks For Everything. 

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 19:46:00 -0500

RIP Steve, Thanks For Everything.



Why Netflix Just Made Me A Redbox Customer

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 14:43:38 -0500

Earlier this morning Engadget posted a story about a possible price increase coming to Netflix this week that started a bit of a stir online. Hours later Netflix broke the news on their blog and soon after updated pricing on their website too. The prices are effective immediately for new customers, and starting after September 1st for existing customers. You can see the new pricing below:

Click To Enlarge

What Netflix is doing is basically making their DVD and Streaming business into two different services with an equal cost. For users who are on their newer DVD or steaming only plans, there is no change. But for those customers, like me, who are on the legacy DVD plans that had included free streaming, there is a significant price increase. My plan which includes Blu-rays is changing from $12/mo to $18/mo, that’s a 50% price increase for nothing new!

I’ve been using Netflix on and off since their launch. Over the past few years I’ve started to use the streaming service the most and considered the discs as an extra perk. I knew about Redbox and never found a use for the service since Netflix was more valuable in my eyes. That is no longer the case.

My big problem with this is not the money, but rather the value of the service. Netflix knows how often I do NOT rent discs anymore. I have rented 17 discs in the last 7 months, that’s less than 3 discs a month. Twice this year I let a disc sit around for two weeks as well before I found time to watch it. When I was paying only $4 more for DVDs and Blu-rays over the $8 streaming plan, that made a lot of sense. But now they just increased that extra cost to $10 extra a month. Renting on average 3 Blu-ray discs a month from Netflix isn’t worth it anymore. I’ll be dropping down to Unlimited Streaming Only before the price change takes effect in September. Which means that’s $4 a month Netflix won’t be getting from this customer, and many others as well who will be doing the same from the sounds of it.

By switching to renting discs from Redbox I’ll likely save myself $75 a year. Instead of paying $10/mo extra to rent DVD and Blu-ray discs at my convenience from Netflix, I will instead pay $1.50 a night to rent a Blu-ray whenever I want to from Redbox. If I keep up with my average of 3 a month, I’ll be paying $4.50 a month in rental charges as long as I return them each night. Sure Redbox has less selection and late fees. The selection doesn’t matter to me because I’m usually renting new Blu-ray releases not available to Stream from Netflix. Redbox offers the same discs with the same 30 day delay that Netflix has, so no major loss there. I will likely rent far less than 3 a month now and instead just get a disc the day I want to watch it.

Redbox also became more attractive recently by adding video games to their boxes. I used to rent some games from my local Blockbuster, which is long since closed. Redbox just filled that void with closer locations and better pricing if I just want to try a game out or if I need an extra disc for a multiplayer game when I have friends over.

The other reason the Netflix DVD queue is less attactive to me going forward is also because Netflix is removing the DVD Queue from their public API in October. This means you can’t add movies to your DVD Queue from Netflix enabled apps. This means the app I developed, Leonard Maltin Movie Guide, or BitBQ’s excellent QueueUp Netflix app will have this one feature completely removed. Instead you will have to use their website to manage and update your DVD queue, thusly hobbling the service.

This would be a great time for Redbox to step up and offer a public API for their disc rental service that apps can tie into. Or a even a hook into launching their mobile apps for a specific title. Anyone from Redbox or Coinstar listening out there?

McCarron's iOS 5 Feature Wishlist

Tue, 31 May 2011 10:39:17 -0500

With today’s official announcement of iOS 5 being unveiled next week at WWDC I figured it was time to write up my wishlist for iOS 5 features that I had been noting for the last few months. Due to it’s size I decided to break down the list into two categories: what I want as an iOS user and what I want as an iOS developer. I don’t expect a lot of the ideas to actually make it into iOS 5, but this is more of what I would finally like to see.

iOS Developer In Me Wants:

Garbage Collection — With iOS 5 rumored not to be available on the 3GS and WebKit getting heap compaction support I don’t think it’s too far fetched to see iOS 5 finally gaining garage collection with iOS 5. Is it required? No but it’d be a nice thing to have from a developer standpoint.
OpenCL — Like Garbage Collection I expect OpenCL to eventually come to iOS. Since the SGX543 in the Apple A5 processor is rumored to support OpenCL, I think to unlock it’s potential with iOS 5 is pretty much a given at this point.
Cloud Sync of user data — There is almost nothing known about iCloud at this point, but from a developer standpoint I’d love to see the ability to sync user Application data like saved games, preferences, etc. much like Valve’s Steam Cloud feature. As a user I’d also love this as I frequently switch between multiple devices around my house, and in some cases I’d love data thats on one device to be on all of them.
Widgets — I think it’s time we see Apple’s implentation of Widgets on iOS which was rumored to have been even planned as far back as iPhone OS 1.0. Simple HTML only apps running on the latest WebKit enhancements would be very fast and slick on iOS. There have been lots of great examples have been popping up over the past few weeks, and I think this implementation by Color Monkey is one of the best I’ve seen with the ability to mix them in with the App icons and Groups.
Easier App Ratings — I think it’s clear that users need an easier way for users to discover how to rate an app. Right now many apps spam the users with requests to review their apps. I think an easy to use and find interface would make this so much easier for users to discover. Either a “Purchased” tab in the AppStore that shows their ratings on the apps or an “Info Button” or “Star” button when you are moving app icons around in addition to the delete button would be helpful for users. I did place this under developer because it’s an issue I see as a developer, not as much as a user. Without positive reviews our apps don’t do as well.
iTunes Apps showing as purchased in AppStore — Like the previous one, this is a major annoyance as an app developer we see with users confused about the process of installing an app they already purchased. They think it’s “US” trying to recharge them the price of the app. Apple addressed this on the iPad AppStore so maybe this change will come to the iPhone as well?
Dock and Charge “Screensaver” Apps — I would love to be able to select an auto-launching screensaver like app for when I dock or charge my iOS device. Maybe even give the user control to tell to define certain apps per specific docks or locations.
Background Downloading — I love how great the iOS multi-tasking works today, but I would love to see support for Apps to be able to do a bit more in the background than they do today, but still controlled tightly by the OS. Like download my latest podcasts, RSS feeds, sync to iCloud, etc without having to launch the app. So that way when I go to use it I don’t have to wait for data to download or sync up. I hit this annoyance often with my Podcast apps, I launch it before a walk and end up having to wait before the podcast I want to listen to is ready.
Write access to the iTunes Library — I think it’s time to allow apps to write as well as read from the iTunes Library. This way you can have access to all your podcasts no matter what application you want to try, you could in theory buy music from Apps like say an Amazon MP3 store app, or even create and save Ringtones directly on the device. Right now to add music you need to actually use a computer with iTunes to manage this, and I don’t see why the device and apps can’t do this.
Apple TV AppStore — I think we are getting this, but the question remains in my mind to what the controller would be. I’d love to see a bluetooth NES style joypad/remote for an A5 powered AppleTV. This would be an instant market for many iOS game developers if they could re-write their existing iOS games to play on the AppleTV with ease, and it would also begin to pit Apple against the home console market too with a $99 console.
Apple’s own TestFlight — TestFlight is nice, but it’s not as perfect as it could be without access to certain things only Apple has. I would love to see Apple revamp the entire testing system for iOS that basically builds out their own TestFlight system. With that it could also finally remove the 100 device limit and maybe make that a 100 user limit and have it tied to Apple IDs instead of UDIDs. The popularity of TestFlight should be showing to Apple that we want a streamlined testing system.
iPad’s 2X Mode use Retina graphics — I personally was surprised this wasn’t turned on for the iPad 2, and I would hope that iOS 5 brings this to the iPad 2. I don’t think the iPad 1 could handle the memory requirements of such a feature, but the iPad 2 could.
Improved Game Center sandbox support — This is another developer annoyance. The whole process is annoying right now that once a Sandboxed app starts up it screws up all non-sandboxed Apps causing a mess of steps required to get onto the non-Sandbox Game Center.

iOS User in me Wants:

Better Notifications System — This is the big and major annoyance with all users of iOS. There is not a day when I return to my phone where I have to close 4-6 alerts before I can actually use my iPhone. I am interested to see how Apple solves this, as currently the only mobile OS with decent notifications is HP’s WebOS. With a radical rethinking I think Apple could really make this perfectly usable again.
Notification silent periods — With a revamp of the Notifications systems I’d love a silent period to set so that I wont get Words with Friends or Carcassone sounds after midnight. Twitter has this feature and I use it to make sure DMs don’t text me at late hours.
Useful Lockscreen — Right now the Lockscreen is pretty bare, I think along with a revamp of the Notifications system I would love to see the ability to see stuff like my Mail, Calendar, Notifications, etc on my Lockscreen. Even if it’s just a counter or as complex as widget support I think this screen could use some new life. With Apple’s continued improvement of cameras in the iPhone it’s become clear that many users want a quick way to launch and use the Camera app. They could create a Lockscreen button if desired, it would make the camera infinitely more usable with this support.
Safari Upload Images/Data — One major cripple iOS has is no way to upload files to web services. Say I wanted to upload a new avatar on Facebook or upload a Word Doc to my employers webservice, you can’t do this at all on iOS. I would love to see Safari have access to the Photo Library and Documents Library when a file uploading form is hit.
Custom SMS Tones — In a later iOS 4 release Apple finally added more preset SMS tones for users, but I think it’s time to allow Ringtones for SMS tones as well. If you have ever been around a group of people with iPhones when someone gets an SMS you’ll see why this is needed when everyone reaches for their iPhone to check if it was them who got the text message.
Device updates without iTunes — Need I say more? Well maybe I should spell it out, with this feature users would be more likely to upgrade to the latest OS. I know many users who don’t even know an update is out because they rarely sync their devices to iTunes on their computer anymore.
Quick Search AppStore — One thing that always surprised me, is there is no link to quickly Search for an App in the AppStore via the Springboard search feature. This just makes sense for Apple to implement and may drive app purchases more often.
Facetime over 3G — FaceTime over WiFi only seemed more like an AT&T restriction, but I have a feeling we’ll see it open to carriers who want to allow it over 3G by sending down an updated Carrier File much like Tethering support. By allowing carriers to selectively support it may actually force AT&T’s hand in allowing it.
Multiple User Accounts for iPad — I don’t see this needed on the iPhone, but as many iPad users can agree that having multiple user accounts on the iPad would be awesome as the devices are often shared between many users in one household. It shouldn’t be too hard for Apple to do this, maybe it’ll be worked into a newer Lockscreen?

I don’t assume we’ll get even half of these, but I’d really like to see a few of them. I also know Apple has much better ideas than the developer community does, so I expect quite a few surprises next week at WWDC. As far as the upcoming iCloud service from Apple that was also confirmed today. I’m thinking this will be a re-named and re-worked MobileMe system. It would be ideal for Apple to also offer this for free as well, at least for basic functionality. iCloud can really add value to the iOS and Mac platforms that doesn’t exist today. Especially if it’s as slick as many are expecting it to be it may be a huge feature win for the platforms.

iOS Wireless App Distribution Talk

Tue, 08 Feb 2011 16:35:00 -0600

Tonight I am giving a talk on iOS Wireless App Distribution at Chicago Cocoaheads. If you missed it or want to follow along you can download the Keynote file.

Here is a list of links referenced in my talk:

Jeffrey Sambells Article on the topic
TestFlight http://www.testflightapp.com/
TestFlight’s Article on Creating IPAs
Hockey https://github.com/TheRealKerni/Hockey
Diawi http://www.diawi.com/
iOS Beta Builder http://www.hanchorllc.com/2010/08/24/introducing-ios-beta-builder/
My Manifest Destiny PHP script: https://gist.github.com/817302

As part of my talk I created a new PHP script that I am calling Manifest Destiny. It automates a step of the process by creating the required manifest property list files on your server. In addition to that it also gives a customizable HTML listing for devices to install said ipa files from their iOS devices. This is currently available as a Gist over on Github.

In the future I may branch it out to be it’s own project, as I have lots of ideas on how to make things better for my workflow. Also let me know via the link on the left if you port it to Ruby or any other server side languages, and I’ll include a link to it.

Three Years of iPhone Development

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 13:49:21 -0500

Three years ago I released my first iPhone application to the public, here is the story of how I got started.

Before I started dabbling in native iPhone development, I had started making iPhone games using web technologies. I had made a really simple web-based iPhone Blackjack game using AJAX, a few JavaScript frameworks and PHP. It was at one point going to be part of an online “Kombat Kasino” for my Mortal Kombat fansite The Realm of Mortal Kombat. But the web interface for the game just wasn’t cutting it for me. It didn’t feel right on the iPhone touch screen. It was then that a friend made a comment that stuck with me: “why doesn’t the game react to gestures like a real casino?” I figured it was perfect time to make it do just that using the recently released iPhone development toolchain.

My first steps in development were to draw an image onto the screen. I then had to figure out how to move them and respond to touching the screen. All this was being new to the platform and the language, I learned many things the hard way. Remember, this was all before Apple allowed us to write apps for the device. We only had framework header files and some shared Mac documentation. The OS that the iPhone was running on then was also far from ready for third party developers as it was an amalgamation of the new UIKit Framework and beta version of OS X Leopard. For instance CoreAnimation was still called Layer Kit. At that point I hadn’t done development for the Mac either, so both Cocoa and Objective-C was all foreign to me. Learning to do all this was the most rewarding programming I had ever done in my life. After a weeks or so of tinkering, I had a tech demo of playing cards moving around the screen randomly. It was cool, but it wasn’t a game.

It wasn’t until Lights Off! for the iPhone was released that I was fully inspired me to make this tech demo into a real game. Every evening for about two weeks I spent countless hours after work at coffee shops, book stores and my home office just trying to get the game into a playable shape. After lots of work and learning I eventually released the first alpha build of the game on August 28th, 2007 at just after midnight. I posted it up on my website and a few other places, and went to sleep.

Screenshot of iBlackjack Alpha 1

The release day was also the same day I was supposed to attend to the iPhone Tech Talks in Chicago. I was pretty tired when I arrived at the Tech Talks because of how late I was up. But the funny part was the entire day was dedicated to Apple developers showing showing us how to make web-apps for the iPhone, and by that time I had a native game. I eventually gathered enough guts to show the game to an evangelist there. He couldn’t tell me anything to help me out, but he pointed me to a great Chicago developer community CAWUG that I should connect with. He also told me more about the great C4 conference that Jonathan Rentzsch had held just a few weeks earlier. These resources I wouldn’t have discovered easily on my own especially when I was so heads down in development.

All versions of my game went on to get a combined total of close to a half million downloads via Installer.app over the next few months. At one point it even got featured on G4’s Attack of the Show in September of 2007 during a segment about third party applications:

From that point on iPhone development was a very exciting ride. In early 2008 I was hired away from my corporate day job to create iPhone apps full time for mobileAge. For them I have produced a bunch of great applications, and even more in the pipe. iBlackjack eventually was renamed Blackjack 21 and released on the first day the iTunes AppStore.

Blackjack 21 Screenshot

It honestly doesn’t feel like it’s been three years, as it’s been such a roller coaster ride watching the iPhone platform evolve. Since becoming an iPhone developer I have become friends with many fellow developers throughout this great community. There is lots of daily inspiration from the other great people also working on Apple’s platforms. I can’t begin to think what I would be doing if I didn’t take this career path, but I guarantee it wouldn’t have been as much fun as this journey has been.

Neven Mrgan on Beta Testing

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 11:33:43 -0500

Neven Mrgan on Beta Testing : Neven Mrgan writes a great article on software beta testing. Every software tester and developer needs to read it in full.

I’m probably not a great software beta tester. Most people aren’t.

We love the idea of beta testing, though. It’s a backstage pass to a movie set, a first draft of an upcoming novel, a rough sketch of a song. But, you know, unless you are prepared for them in a very specific way, those are all…

Andrey Subbotin: iPhone 4 @2x assets made easy

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 14:13:00 -0500

Andrey Subbotin: iPhone 4 @2x assets made easy:

Andrey Subbotin put together a great Ruby script for updating your app’s art assets for Retina screen on the iPhone 4. It is a great looking utility, I suggest you check it out.

We were updating our app’s graphics for the gorgeous screen of iPhone 4 the other day and it was a pain to update all the 163 PNG files we had and not to miss a thing.

So, I’ve come up with a simple Ruby script that checks that for each @1x image you have a properly sized @2x image.

markomni: Lightning strikes Chicago!

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 14:57:12 -0500

markomni:

Lightning strikes Chicago!

My $2.99 iPad Stand

Mon, 26 Apr 2010 10:06:15 -0500

While I’ve been waiting for the BookArc for iPad to ship, I had to find another interim stand to use for my iPad. After some scouring, I found a nice holder at Office Depot meant for plates or signs. It works in both Landscape and Portrait and allows for the dock connector to be used. Here is a look at it in action:

Are You Sick of 3D?

Sat, 10 Apr 2010 15:07:21 -0500

Are You Sick of 3D?:

I think the studios will kill 3D my taking movies not meant for the format and “reformatting” them to be a fake 3D. Thus cheapening the true 3D effect and making viewers less likely to pony up the additional cash for it.

"If you want to get good at something, you have to put in the time and invest in yourself."

Tue, 06 Apr 2010 16:37:00 -0500

“If you want to get good at something, you have to put in the time and invest in yourself.”

- LIFE. IS. PAIN. by Daniel Pasco.

This posting by Daniel really struck a chord with me. I spent nearly every night for a few months in late 2007 teaching myself iPhone Development before there were books or even documentation back when the iPhone first came out. Heck, I’m still learning! I didn’t get a lot of sleep or see my friends for a long time, but I enjoyed working on something I was passionate about.

Over the past few years I’ve had many friends ask about getting jobs in the iPhone development, most of them with no experience to speak of. So thanks to Daniel I will now know where I’ll be pointing them when they complain about taking the time to learn Objective C, or why they should spend $25 on a book to get started.

"In many ways, it’s the things that are not there that we are most proud of… For us, it is all about..."

Thu, 01 Apr 2010 12:46:49 -0500

“In many ways, it’s the things that are not there that we are most proud of… For us, it is all about refining and refining until it seems like there’s nothing between the user and the content they are interacting with.”

- Jonathan Ive in the Time iPad article (via frijole)

ericsenf: Sorry, Flash, you’re out of luck. 03/21/2010 |...

Sun, 21 Mar 2010 12:59:03 -0500

ericsenf:

Sorry, Flash, you’re out of luck.

03/21/2010 | FoxTrot.com (via @McCarron)